Addicted

"Hello, my name is Carla and I am addicted to social networking"

It's bad y'all. Facebook is going to be my downfall. I cannot understand WHY it's so addictive, or why I cannot stay off of that site. It's a compulsion. The only comfort I get is knowing that I am not alone in my addiction.

When I joined Facebook in 2004, I thought it was stupid. I didn't understand what was so attractive about its simplicity. At the time, it was only open to college students -- people I saw regularly, since I still lived in Ann Arbor. You had a profile, a picture and that was it. Stupid.

Shortly thereafter, they incorporated the ability to post pictures. I believe that this is when I officially became addicted. Not to mention, I had moved to Ohio at this point and it was a good way to stay in touch with my Michigan folks -- and people from other colleges. Simultaneously, my brother invited me to join MySpace and I found myself on there ALL of the TIME. Facebook..afterthought. MySpace addiction continued for awhile, and I contemplated deleting my Facebook account several times.

However, at this point it was open for anyone to join. People I hadn't seen or heard from in YEARS suddenly started sending me friend requests. Preschool friends, elementary and high school acquaintences, ex-boyfriends and the like, friends from Detroit, etc. And because talking on the phone is one of my largest deficiencies, this became a wonderful way to stay in touch with people and get updated on their lives. Another attractive perk was the ability to find friends when I was going on vacation. For example, I went to Los Angeles in 2006, and thanks to Facebook, I linked up with my college friend Eddie for a wonderful night of salsa dancing.

The more people that joined and added me, the more I felt compelled to visit the site and see what was going on. Eventually, the Facebook devils added the "notifications", "chat", "status updates" and then the ability to comment on one's status update. After that, I was done. Today, I find myself checking Facebook every few minutes. Thanks to my iPhone, I almost unconsciously tap the Facebook app and look for a little red notification dot. And, as confident as I am with my new beau situation, I catch myself looking at his page for any females trying to push up on him. (lol, *smh*). Facebook can get you into trouble.

It's funny because just this week I've had three phone conversations....about Facebook. It's really changed the face of modern communication. How much you learn about others. I find I can't tell stories anymore, because people already know my isht from my compulsive status updates. (lol)

They're going to need to come up with a 12-Step Program for Facebookers who can't break the habit. Sign me up.

The Communication Gap

From the day I started blogging in 2003, I've written countless posts about my inadequacy with the telephone. I've discussed how I'm an overall poor "phone friend" - to which, my friends will grant a resounding "aaaaaamen!". I've talked about how, after being on the phone at work ALL day long, I rarely feel up to holding a conversation once I leave the office. I've mentioned how, when I get a phone call, I stop everything I'm doing, plop on the couch, and yap away. This doesn't mean I can't hold a decent conversation, because I can. It means that I rarely take the initiative to pick up the phone and call folk. Suddenly, last week while IM'ing my mother on Gmail chat, it all clicked.

I inherited this craptastic behavior from my family. It's genetic.

How did I come to this fantastic conclusion? My mom and I were IM'ing, first of all. During our electronic conversation, she was sharing with me that my grandmother was here from PR, staying with my great aunt and uncle in Sarasota. And my aunt was fussin' because, in the year I've lived in Florida, I haven't seen them once. My mom sent me all of their contact numbers, and gave them mine. Sadly, I already had my uncle's number programmed into my phone. Oops. Then we discussed my other uncle, who lives 15 minutes from me in another part of Tampa. I needed to connect with him to get to the program in Deltona this past Saturday. I hadn't seen my uncle since March. Not for a lack of trying...he just doesn't answer his phone. I'll call when I'm in the area, or on a slow Sunday afternoon when I know they're not doing anything, and I'll get his voice mail. I talked about him for this too, when they tried to get on me for not coming around more often.

Next, there's my brother. He lives in Los Angeles, so the time difference already makes communication difficult. When I was up north for Labor Day, various people asked me how he was doing. I couldn't really tell them, as we hadn't spoken in two months. I gave a generic "oh he's good, playing music on the regular!" (this I know to be true, thanks to MySpace). When we finally connected a few weeks back, he began to tell me how my father "got on him" about not calling more. *silence on the phone*

Then, there's my nephew. He turned 5 on Saturday. I called his mother that day to talk to him. I hadn't spoken to either one of them since January...there's another story behind all of that, but it doesn't make the situation any less pathetic.

I could go on and on with other embarrassing examples of piss-poor communication between my family members and me, like the infrequent phone calls while I was away at college. It's funny, because when my stepmother entered the picture and used to call me randomly to "check on me", I found it quite odd, i.e."Why is she callin' so much?" It's just not part of my family culture.

To me, this behavior is normal. Typing it out for others to read, I suddenly feel a twinge of embarrassment. I know others whose families are quite close and talk often. That's just not us, not either side. It's like, "see ya when I see ya". It's fostered a great deal of independence in me, not being coddled all of the time by my parents and other relatives, but it's turned me into a terrible "phone friend".

Of course, all of this goes out of the door when I'm dating someone. I expects my phone calls, nucka. (lol)

So the next time anyone is annoyed with me for being noncommunicative or not calling, I'm going to tell them to blame my family.